Indigenous long grassers in Darwin unable to get back to their communities as program stalls

Some Indigenous people are living rough on Darwin's streets because they cannot get back home, the Northern Territory Government and an Aboriginal services provider say.

Key points:

Program to return long grassers back to their communities stalled

Calls for Government to fill $600,000 hole in program

Government could seek another organisation to provide service

The Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation's Return to Country (RTC) program, which sends the so-called long grassers back to their community, has not been functioning for months because of its financial difficulties.

Larrakia Nation has been locked in meetings with the Northern Territory and Commonwealth governments in recent weeks about its financial future.

"It [RTC] hasn't been operating as successfully as it could so there are now a lot of people who are refugees and unable to get home because of a lack of access to that program," NT Chief Minister Adam Giles said.

The program has been running on and off for several years but Larrakia Nation said it stopped again earlier this year after the Territory Government's last payment in December 2015.

"We gave an enormous lump sum component to that program and they were using a cost recovery model beyond that, which would see passengers who travel home pay back part of that payment," Mr Giles said.

But both he and Larrakia Nation agree that the model, which requires repayment through Centrelink, has not worked.

We ran at a loss of over $600,000 for the year to keep this service available

Larrakia Nation CEO, Edwin McKenzie

"One of the issues has been people were cancelling the payment from Centrelink so the money wasn't coming in," Mr Giles said.

"So on a cost-recovery basis it wasn't working."

The current interim CEO of Larrakia Nation, Edwin McKenzie, was appointed recently after a succession of leaders.

Mr McKenzie said the RTC program was flawed, because there was no control over the program's recipients once they returned to their community.

"All they need to do is to go to Centrelink and stop payments. And who has to pay for it? We do," Mr McKenzie said.

"It's taxed our financial resources to the max as well.

"We ran at a loss of over $600,000 for the year to keep this service available," he said.

'We need to make sure Larrakia Nation is not trading insolvent'

The ABC understands the Government made an offer of administration to Larrakia Nation because of financial problems.

"We want to work with the corporation," Mr Giles said.

"We need to make sure it's not trading insolvent, because that's illegal and we need to make sure it has the capacity to deliver on programs.

"We're keen to get it up and running again or re-establish itself."

Mr McKenzie confirmed some financial problems.

"We are considering voluntary administration but we want to go down all avenues in the spirit of self-determination, self-management so we can resolve this problem ourselves," Mr McKenzie said.

He has called on the Government to fill the $600,000 hole from the RTC program.

Mr Giles has rejected that notion.

"If there's a significant financial debt we can't just go and fill a hole of debt with money that we want to run Return to Country because the money we put in just goes to outstanding bills," Mr Giles said.

He said the Government would find another organisation to provide the service if Larrakia Nation cannot resolve its debt problems.

Larrakia Nation said that would not be fair.

"We have the most trust from the long grassers and other people in the community," Mr McKenzie said.

"That would be a travesty of justice if he tried to give it to another provider.

"We're doing our best with the resources we've got and funding we've got."